Also available
History and Culture Overview
From uncomfortable union to peace and prosperity
The state of Nigeria came into existence on January 1, 1914 when Britain merged the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, and the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, which contained Lagos, to form the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Britain had annexed Lagos in 1861, the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria between 1885 and 1894, and the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria in 1903.
Britain had used a system of ‘indirect rule’ in the Muslim north – local government was to be left in the hands of the emirs, subject to the guidance of British officers. Caliphate officials were transformed into salaried district heads and became agents of the British authorities, responsible for peacekeeping and tax collection. The British high commissioner was at the top of the chain of command. On joining north and south, the indirect rule principle was applied throughout Nigeria.
Nigeria was divided into three autonomous regions with overlapping economic interests, but little in common, socially or politically: the north, the southwest and the southeast. In the north, the colonial government respected Islam and avoided any appearance of a challenge to traditional values that might incite resistance to British rule. Christian missionaries were barred, and education was harmonized with Islamic institutions. In the south, traditional leaders were sometimes employed as vehicles of indirect rule, but Christianity and Western education undermined their power. On occasion, the British created new political hierarchies, but the overriding principle was to rule through the most malleable, whether they were of royal blood or not. The rapid spread of Western education and Christianity in the south caused it to develop much faster than the north, and this growing disparity began to cause tension.
Movements for self-rule developed earlier in the south than in the north. The 1922 constitution established a new legislative council in the south, and encouraging the emergence of political parties. Herbert Macaulay, the ‘father of Nigerian nationalism’, emerged as the founder of the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP). Nigeria's first political party to have nationwide appeal was the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), founded in 1944 by Nnamdi Azikiwe, with Macaulay as its president. The Northern People’s Congress (NPC) emerged in the late 1940s, founded by a group of Western-educated northern Muslims who wanted to counterbalance the activities of the southern-based parties. In 1950, Aminu Kano broke from the NPC to form the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), which formed a parliamentary alliance with the NCNC.
The British attempted to ease the pressure for an independent Nigeria by granting political concessions. In 1946, each group of provinces was granted its own House of Assembly; there were also a House of Chiefs and, in Lagos, a central Legislative Council. In 1954, as part of Nigeria’s reconstruction into a fully federal state, the protectorates were renamed the Western, Eastern, and Northern regions.
From independence to civil war
Nigeria became an independent country with dominion status within the British Commonwealth on October 1, 1960. Azikiwe was installed as governor general of the federation and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa continued to serve as prime minister, as he had since 1957. In 1963 Nigeria proclaimed itself a Federal Republic, with Azikiwe as its first President. The country was effectively controlled by three ethnic groups: the west by the Yoruba, the east by the Igbo, and the north by the Hausa-Fulani. There was an atmosphere of mutual distrust – the south complained of northern domination, and the north feared a power grab by the southern elite.
